"Now a team of scientists led by the University of Southampton has moved a step closer to understanding these mysterious cosmic phenomena - known as relativistic jets - by measuring how quickly they 'switch on' and start shining brightly once they are launched.

How these jets form is still a puzzle. One theory suggests that they develop within the 'accretion disc' - the matter sucked into the orbit of a growing black hole. Extreme gravity within the disc twists and stretches magnetic fields, squeezing hot, magnetised disc material called plasma until it erupts in the form of oppositely directed magnetic pillars along the black hole's rotational axis."

"Dr Gandhi, of the University of Southampton, said: "Scientists have been observing jets for decades, but are far from understanding how nature creates these mind-bogglingly vast and energetic structures."

"But the physics of black hole jets has nothing to do with lasers or the fictional Kyber crystals that power the Death Star. Nature has found other ways to power jets," said Dr Gandhi. "Gravity and magnetic fields play the key roles here, and this is the mechanism we are trying to unravel."

"The galaxy Messier 77 (M77) is famous for its super-active nucleus that releases enormous energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, ranging from x-ray to radio wavelengths. Yet, despite its highly active core, the galaxy looks like any normal quiet spiral. There's no visual sign of what is causing its central region to radiate so extensively. It has long been a mystery why only the center of M77 is so active. Astronomers suspect a long-ago event involving a sinking black hole, which could have kicked the core into high gear."

"This is one of the most puzzling questions in astronomy: How were supermassive black holes able to form in the early cosmic ages? Distant luminous quasars have been observed that betray their existence back when the universe was less than a billion years old. But here is the thing: the conventional growth process of a black hole is way too slow to allow their existence."

""My bet is that we're looking at things all wrong," says Dodelson. "Someone who's eight years old today is going to come around and figure out how to make sense of all the data without evoking mysterious new substances.""